Group releases 300,000 bees

By Special to the Pilot by Mureen Walker April 30, 2013 08:43 pm

Members of the Oregon South Coast Bee Association carefully transfer honey bees from the carrying container into a hive. Submitted photo

“If you start with one hive and it fails, you have 100 percent failure, but if you start with two and lose one it is only half the loss and you can split the one you still have and get back to having the two you started with. That’s 100 percent success,” said association member Carla Fletcher.

Fletcher ordered 32 packages of bees for members and friends of the association. They received 26 3-pound packages and six 4-pound packages, for an estimated 3,000 bees per pound, Fletcher said. Her daughter, Laurie, transported the bees to Curry County last week.

About a dozen people, from Bandon to Smith River, Calif., picked up packages at the OSU Extension Office on the fairgrounds in Gold Beach. Members

“Most of the first time beekeepers ordered two colonies each, under advisement from mentors, and each package came with a fertile queen in her own separate cage,” Fletcher said.

Each of the 32 new queens are expected to lay approximately 1,000 eggs per day, which will begin hatching out in about 21 days after the queen starts laying, Fletcher said.

Each queen will produce a “work force” that is increases in size by a thousand every day, she said.